DITA, the brackets
The angle brackets of markup: the structure the content is held in. Topics, maps, references and metadata, all standard, none of it invented here.
Platform overview
One platform on Microsoft, four named products
DitaExchange manages content as DITA components inside the Microsoft 365 you already run: content comes in, lives in SharePoint, is written in Word, and is checked against your rules.
Where the name comes from
DITA is the architecture. Exchange is the point.
DITA is the open standard for structured, component-oriented content: written once, approved once, reused wherever it belongs. Exchange is what carries that beyond the specialists, which is why subject matter experts author in Microsoft Word rather than in an XML editor.
Exchange, what moves
The two shapes passing between them: an approved component traveling from the person who wrote it to everyone who has to read, sign or publish it, without a conversion step in between.
How they fit together
One source, written once, checked once, published everywhere
The four products are designed as one workflow. Content is authored where the experts already work, stored and published from the platform, and validated against your standards before it moves downstream.
Bring content in
DxMigrationTool imports the Word, HTML, Markdown and text files already written, and componentizes them.
Manage & publish
Dx5 stores the components in SharePoint, runs review and approval, and publishes to Word, HTML and XML.
Author in Word
DxAuthor+ keeps subject matter experts in Microsoft Word, applying the DITA structure behind the scenes.
Enforce quality
DxChecker turns your standards into machine-checkable rules, applied at authoring time or across the repository.
The Dx5 product family
Content comes in, lives in SharePoint, is written in Word, and is checked against your rules.
One place to look for each of the four jobs: bringing existing content in, managing and publishing it, writing it, and checking it against your rules.
Getting started
DxMigrationTool
The content you already have, brought in as components.
- Imports Word, HTML, Markdown and text files
- Metadata captured, styling aligned
- Links and cross-references fixed
- Documents componentized into topics
Dx5
Content management and publishing inside Microsoft SharePoint.
- Browser-based topic-tree authoring
- Built-in approval workflows and snapshot capability
- One-click publishing: Word, HTML, XML
- Translation packages per language
DxAuthor+
Structured DITA authoring inside Microsoft Word.
- Word add-in, authors stay in the tool they know
- Topic tagging from SharePoint Term Store
- Cross-topic linking with SharePoint search and preview
- Single sign-on through Entra ID
DxChecker
Rule-based content quality across the SharePoint repository.
- Configurable rule sets: your standards as machine-checkable rules
- Runs at authoring time, on schedule, or via workflow
- Controlled-language enforcement (ASD-STE100 and equivalents)
- Roadmap: deeper DxAuthor+ integration; AI-supported content rules
Frequently asked questions
Do we have to adopt all four products?
They answer four different questions, so it depends which ones you have. An organization with no existing document estate to bring in does not need DxMigrationTool, which runs once per body of content rather than continuously. Dx5 is the platform DxAuthor+ writes into and DxMigrationTool imports into, so it is the one that is not optional. Where a program starts is part of the first conversation, not a fixed set.
We already pay for SharePoint and Word. What are we actually buying?
The structure layer. SharePoint gives you storage, identity, permissions, audit and data residency. What it has no notion of is a topic type, a map-based assembly, a content reference or a DITA publishing pipeline. That is what DitaExchange adds on top: components with their own version and approval record, reuse that resolves at assembly time, rule-based quality checking, and publishing to Word, HTML and XML from one source.
Who administers this, and what do we have to staff?
The platform side is SharePoint administration, in the same admin center that already controls the tenant. The part that needs named people is editorial. Someone owns the topic model, someone maintains the taxonomy in the SharePoint Term Store, someone owns the rule sets DxChecker enforces. Those are decisions the software applies rather than makes, and they are worth writing into the plan before the tool is chosen.
Is any of the AI capability shipping today?
No, and the distinction is worth keeping. What exists today is content an AI system can consume: approved components reachable through the Dx5 API or a published portal, with terminology and metadata that a ruleset has already checked, so retrieval is not quoting the inconsistent copy. AI-supported rule creation, and rules running inside the DxAuthor+ writing experience, are roadmap. When they ship they will be described as shipping.
DitaExchange is a small Danish vendor. What does that mean for a large program?
That the reference list is narrow and deep rather than broad. EASA has published European aviation rules on the platform since 2018, and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the European Defence Agency, Lockheed Martin, LSEG and Grundfos run it. The company is DitaExchange ApS in Aarhus with a US office in Radnor, Pennsylvania, part of Wirtek A/S, publicly listed in Denmark. Buyers who weight a long Global 2000 roster will find vendors that match that better.
See the whole platform on your own content
We can walk the four products end to end on a document set of yours, so you see how the import, authoring, management and quality steps fit together.
